Strengthen your dissemination strategy through joint events

16/11/2021

When you are managing or delivering dissemination activities for a Research and development project, life can be tough.

Just how do you create real impact on the results of your project which perhaps has very specialized results on a particular topic and just how do you communicate highly technical and how do you reach out to people beyond your network?

In delivering the Horizon Results Booster, we come across many dissemination managers who are facing this problem. Just how can I maximise my dissemination activities, especially at a time when physical events are few and far between and the physical interaction with colleagues is not happening?

6 easy steps to include events in your dissemination strategy

Collaborating with other projects for dissemination activities such as workshops or events can often be a simple and effective way to address this and here’s six reasons why.

1. Invite other projects as co-organisers of your event: By collaborating with two, three or more projects in a joint event, you can basically reach a much larger audience. By working together, joint messaging around the event can be distributed to all of the participating projects’ networks and through their various dissemination channels your projects run. What we have seen is that individual projects manage to reach new stakeholders that otherwise they would not have reached. This means greater impact in terms of audience reach and the opportunity to disseminate to new communities.
   
   
2. A stronger agenda and message: A joint event provides the opportunity to not only leverage networks, but also results. The strength and depth of the groups of projects that we support in HRB is impressive. By helping groups of projects to organise joint events, where numerous research outputs are on show, we have seen that participation is not only higher, but also broader in nature than normal. This opens up new avenues and networks to the projects participating.
   
   
3. Spread your wings and attract new stakeholders and communities. With a larger and perhaps broader range of participants, you can also set up meetings or further deep-dive events which focus on your own project results and potential exploration of exploitation opportunities. Not only that, in HRB Module 1 we provide project groups with a list of potential contacts for joint dissemination activities. These can be used by all participating projects for future events.
   
   
4. Make sure you follow up with participants! Use these events as recruitment channels to reach other communications KPIs. Send out targeted mails to participants inviting them to sign up for your newsletter or register on your website. You can even invite them to join your social media channels.
   
   
5. Use the event to make recommendations to policy makers. Having insight and guidance from the collective expertise of groups of projects and their respective consortia is a useful vehicle for the European policy makers. A post-event summary with the main take-aways or recommendations can make an excellent post-event summary that can be delivered not only to participants but also to the EC or policy makers. This leverages the collective voice you have created and leaves a lasting legacy of the event.
   
   
6. Record and report your events. Collaboration on dissemination activities is generally seen as a positive use of resources and time, in particular at a time when actual physical events are still not possible. Make sure you present these activities at your periodic reviews highlighting the positive impact it has had on your project.
   
   

Teaming up with other projects to disseminate results if R&I activities can save time, energy and money in the long run. It’s a great way to demonstrate a tangible outcome of collaboration between two or more projects. Events can also be a first step to establishing further avenues for synergizing. The HRB dissemination services directly support projects to identify areas for potential collaboration and help you to actually organise and deliver a joint workshop or event. Some nice examples that of such workshops supported by HRB focus both on green solutions. RECOTRANS have teamed up with three projects to deliver a workshop later this week on efficient manufacturing and composite recycling concepts of the next generation of the transport sector. PANIWATER on the other hand delivered a joint workshop at the EC’s Green Week event in June with 4 other EU-India projects.

The workshop demonstrated low-cost innovative solutions for zero water pollution in India showcasing solutions from all projects.

Interested in receiving free dissemination support?
The Horizon Results Booster (HRB) supports the effective transfer of research and innovation project results to policymakers, industry, and society by offering various services such as dissemination, exploitation strategy development, and business plan development to projects supported under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) or Horizon 2020 funding schemes related to the European Commission Priority areas. Trust-IT is one of the founding Partners of HRB and proudly delivers the Portfolio Dissemination services (Service 1, Module A and Module B).

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